Shaking Off Another Year
by DCFanatic4life
Summary: It's AJ Lee's birthday, and it's all fun and games until someone she kisses every week forgets...


**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or real people depicted in this story. The characters belong to the WWE, and the real people own themselves. This is really just fluff, so read away!**

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****A/N: As I'm sure you know, today is AJ's birthday, and as I'm sure you know if you read my stories lately, I freaking love her and Dolph to distraction. So...I was talking with Carly (cjpunkx) and she gave me this great idea you're about to read, so you can all thank her for this. And I know that I don't usually just update randomly, but AJ and Dolph are kind of breaking the rules right now.

You don't need to know anything going into this, but I'd love to hear feedback so if you want to leave a review, I would love it if you did, hope you enjoy! :)

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He hadn't said anything to her.

It wasn't like he didn't have the opportunity. They'd had breakfast that morning, and she'd sat there, a big grin on her face, just waiting for him to spring the words on her, but they never came. He spoke of his match at WrestleMania, how he'd been hoping for a singles match, but that he was glad to be working against Daniel and Kane because they were both great workers. And he talked about how it would be good for E to finally get in the ring, and he wondered if they would keep him on the sidelines until WrestleMania.

But he hadn't mentioned anything about her birthday.

She'd hinted at least four times, but still, nothing. She'd sat there, eating her food, and as he kept not saying anything, kept going on about other things, about going back to Phoenix the next day, her food started to taste dull, like gruel, and she had to shove it down by the end so he wouldn't be suspicious. If he didn't remember, he didn't remember, but why didn't he remember?

They'd been together, well, on-screen of course, since December, and even before that they were working together, she'd known him since NXT, at least she was on his periphery, and she'd celebrated her birthday before at the shows. Last year it was during Raw, so it's not like he couldn't at least know the general time frame. Plus, she'd mentioned it before in the previous couple weeks, talking about how her mom would send her something she didn't need, but she'd keep it around anyways because it was from her mom, there were so many times she'd mentioned it.

She had her tongue down his throat every week, didn't that warrant him remembering her birthday? They traveled together now, just them and E in a car, and birthdays had surely come up at some point, but he was sitting there, talking about how hot it was in Phoenix and how he might catch a spring training game, and would it be entirely appropriate in this situation to stab him in the hand with a fork?

She didn't want to think about the implications these malicious feelings stirred inside of her. No, it wasn't her going crazy like her onscreen character, but things between her and Dolph were getting weird. Not bad weird, just…_weird _weird. Like things were getting comfortable, too comfortable, comfortable to the point where she wanted to see him a lot…or all the time. That wasn't strange though, they worked closely together, and they'd discussed making this storyline the best possible thing.

"_Like Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth."_

Randy Savage probably remembered Miss Elizabeth's birthday though.

After breakfast, he went to get in a light jog while she met up with some of the other divas and wrestlers. She'd invited him along, but he'd declined, saying he would catch her later so they could get to the show. She'd smiled and feigned happiness, telling him she'd see him later and to be careful not to be mobbed by the millions of people who wanted to be him. He gave her that smile that was giving her too many flutters nowadays, the one where the corners of his mouth just slightly turned up, and his eyes shone brightly. She bit her lip and waved at him before he winked at her and left.

Her small party was everything she could have hoped for. There were cupcakes from a local bakery, her favorite, chocolate with chocolate frosting (she was not a fancy girl with fancy tastes), and gifts that were perfect for her (what person didn't need glitter crayons?). There were laughs and hugs and she felt well-loved, and that was more than she could have hoped for. She'd spent a lot of time growing up moving from place to place, never really settling any roots, but this, here, it was home now, and her friends were her roots. She felt right for the first time in a long time.

"Kaitlyn, thank you for the My Little Pony coloring book, this is going to really come in handy on those long road trips," AJ hugged her best friend who laughed and hugged her back.

"You have to have something to do when you're stuck in a car with two guys," Kaitlyn laughed, making light of her driving situation now. "Since I can't be there all the time to haul your ass around."

"Well this will keep me occupied, and it'll give the guys tons of ammo," AJ joked.

"So what did our guy get you?" Kaitlyn sat down next to AJ and leaned in so nobody else could hear. "I mean, he obviously gave you the present at breakfast, right? Since he wanted to go to breakfast with just you. Is it sweet, can we interpret the hell out of it? How long until he gets into your pants for real?"

"Kaitlyn," AJ covered her face in embarrassment as her best friend just laughed at her. Kaitlyn was convinced that Dolph was in love with her, but she didn't want to jump to conclusions. She wasn't stupid, she knew that Dolph dated girls who were…not like her. She didn't even feel like his type, and why was she even thinking about this? She was just friends with the man. Anything Kaitlyn said was just her trying to rile AJ up.

"Oh, come on, just give in already!" Kaitlyn bit her lip. "The two of you are too—"

"It's all for show."

"You mean to tell me that someone _told_ him to start playing with your hair all the time?" Kaitlyn gave her a look, "and I've kissed him, and he did not kiss me like he kisses you, not at all. Ours was pretty awkward actually."

"We've been kissing for months now, it was bound to be different," AJ said, then she rolled her eyes, "he didn't say anything, okay? He didn't say anything about my birthday, and he didn't give me anything."

"You're kidding me, aren't you? You're pranking me, this is a prank, give it up, what did he give you?"

"I'm serious, Kaitlyn, he didn't even remember," AJ tried to laugh it off, but Kaitlyn was her best friend and she could see right through it. Kaitlyn enveloped AJ into a hug. "It's okay, don't worry about it, it's not like he's with me, you know."

"Do you want me to kick his ass?"

"No! I don't even want to bring it up, this is enough."

"Where did he think you were going just now?"

"Just to hang out, I didn't want to seem needy, like I was begging him to remember."

"I can't believe that," Kaitlyn shook her head, "I would chew him the hell out."

"I know you would, but I'm not you, so we'll just drop it, yeah?"

"Fine, but I'm going to glare at him for at least the next six months whenever I see him."

"Deal."

She'd hoped when they drove to the show, he'd surprise her by remembering, but still, nothing. She looked at him expectantly, but he just kept driving. So she frowned and turned to look out the window, sighing as she did so. She could see him turn to her out of the corner of her eye, but he turned back to the road before she could look back. She wasn't going to remind him, she wasn't going to remind him, she wasn't going to remind him.

He should have remembered on his own.

They were walking into the arena when he grabbed her arm. He must have noticed her quickened pace and she was sure he was going to ask her why she was walking so fast. "Hey, before we go inside and everything, what are you doing after the show?"

"Nothing, getting a ride with you back to the hotel," she shrugged. She was upset now. It was rounding on two in the afternoon, and he wasn't saying anything about her birthday. He'd forgotten or he didn't care, and both options left her with a hole in her stomach that burned. Was it so wrong to want him of all people to remember? She'd thought they'd gotten close, friends, she'd at the very least thought she could call him a friend, but what was he if he didn't even remember something as simple as her birthday?

"So no plans at all?"

"Like I just said, no," she told him.

He looked down at his shoes and back up at her, rubbing the back of his neck before slicking his hair down, something she noticed he did as a nervous tic. "Did you want to get dinner with me after the show?"

"Dinner?"

"Me, you, a meal, do you have an early flight to Tampa tomorrow?"

"No, I'm not leaving until the afternoon, so dinner?"

"Yeah, I just," his eyes rolled up to the sky as he stared at everything except her, "I know you now, and I know…but I just didn't…couldn't think of anything…God, I'm stupid because I couldn't figure out what to get you for your birthday. I've been thinking for weeks, I asked around, but nothing seemed good enough."

"My birthday?"

He remembered.

He remembered and he was embarrassed to say anything because he hadn't bought her anything.

He wanted to buy her something.

"Yeah, you know, today, the day you were born," he laughed, "so can I at least take you out to dinner?"

"Of course!" she grinned. "Of course you can take me out to dinner, that would be great, I would really, really like dinner with you."

"Great," he nodded, and he looked relieved. She felt relieved too. When they turned to walk inside, she was grinning. He opened the door for her, and she beamed at him before ducking under his arm to get inside. She walked closer than usual next to him, and she knew it was silly, but she felt like just him acknowledging her birthday was gift enough. He not only remembered, he felt so guilty about not having anything for her he was even embarrassed to ask her out to dinner.

That was something she found so fascinating about him. To all the world, he seemed a cocky, arrogant ladies man, a jerk and a flirt as she'd heard float around. Except that everything about him, everything she'd seen about him, none of it fit that description at all. When he was around her, he almost seemed a little shy. The first time they had to kiss onscreen, he could barely look her in the eyes backstage. She'd asked Kaitlyn about her kiss with Dolph, and she'd said the same thing, he was embarrassed about it, tried to play it off. For all his cockiness, he was still just a shy guy underneath.

They walked past Kaitlyn and she glared hard at Dolph, but AJ shook her head no. Kaitlyn's eyes widened and she rushed up to the two of them. "I'm stealing AJ, birthday girl surprise!" Kaitlyn grabbed AJ's arm and pulled her from the surprised Dolph, who stood there a moment just staring as Kaitlyn dragged AJ into the women's locker room.

"Tell me everything!" Kaitlyn told her.

"He remembered, he knew the whole time, but he didn't buy me anything because he searched for weeks for something, but couldn't figure out what to get me," AJ said, "so he asked me out to dinner."

"Oh my God, this is it! This is it!" Kaitlyn grinned at her, grabbing at AJ's hands. "This is not a drill, this is the real thing."

"Kaitlyn! No, he just feels bad."

"Feels bad my ass," Kaitlyn guffawed. "You are going out to dinner with the man that you are in love with, be happier!"

"I'm not in love with him!" AJ protested.

"Oh, but you will be soon, face it, you two have changed," Kaitlyn said. "I bet if I asked E about it, he'd agree with me, he sees you two firsthand, he knows these things. He sees you in the car together, he'll know, let's go ask him."

"No," AJ grounded her best friend before she went off. "I just…it's a nice thing to do for a friend, let's not put too much on this."

If she let herself think about what the implications might be, she was going to fall. She was on the precipice as it was, but she was trying so hard not to look over that ledge. It was one thing to admit to being comfortable in ways that extended beyond the storyline, but to actually say to herself, 'I like this man, I want to be with him,' that was a step her brain was still trying to refuse to make to protect the rest of her in case he didn't feel the same.

"Okay, next Monday though, I've got twenty you two are a couple," Kaitlyn did a little dance.

"Don't make bets."

"I'm going to win, you're going to be with him," Kaitlyn said in a singsong voice and AJ just rolled her eyes.

"It's just dinner."

So why was she so nervous? She'd gone to dinner with him before, she'd gone to plenty of meals with him before. There was one time where pasta flew out of her mouth because he told her a joke, and she'd nearly turned so red she turned into a tomato, but even that was nothing compared to this, or his hand on the small of her back or the fact he took her to a place where she kind of had to dress up. She didn't normally bring dressy clothes, but she had one skirt with her, and she was wearing that, and he had his blazer on, and no, Kaitlyn was not right about this.

"I'm still so sorry I didn't get you anything," he apologized the moment they sat down. "I feel like an idiot for it."

"Don't, this is beautiful," she looked around the restaurant. It was a little past 10 (they'd left early because they were on early in the show), so the restaurant wasn't too crowded. In this day and age, people ate later and later so it wasn't like they had the whole place to themselves, but without a crowd, it had an intimate feel to it.

"I found this, this morning, on my jog," he told her, "I wanted to do _something_ for you, I thought I could find something to buy you, but I…didn't want to buy you a gag gift, which I know you like and everything, but I don't know, just didn't feel right."

"I would have liked anything, but this is perfect, I love it," she nodded as the waiter came over to take their drink orders. "I didn't even expect to get dinner out, I was going to go to my room and probably just order room service."

"Well, I'm glad you didn't have plans," he smiled at her, and there it was again, that smile. She felt like breathing was becoming difficult so she needed to change the subject and fast.

"I'm so glad you're winning again," she told him. "I like it much better than losing and having to act so mad and upset."

"I like the celebrations," he told her and she blushed and ducked behind her menu. Oh my God, why did she feel like this was her 14th birthday and not her 26th? She was supposed to be mature now. This was her trying to be mature so she slowly lowered the menu and he was laughing at her.

"Shut up!" she told him, burying her face in her menu again, but he reached out and pulled it down so he could look at her face. "Don't say that about our celebrations!"

"What? It's my favorite thing, I've said this…in an interview, to the public, they all know," he told her. "It's on the internet, nothing ever dies on the internet."

"I know, believe me, wardrobe malfunction, remember?"

"Hey, at least your ass wasn't exposed like my wardrobe malfunction," he told her and she was sure that this was going to top the blush-o-meter, totally topping the pasta incident. "You are so red right now."

"Stop, I'm embarrassed," she told him, looking anywhere but at him. She could still hear him laughing though.

"I think it's cute that you're so shy when you're not in front of the ring," he told her, his voice dropping into seriousness. "I think that's one of the things I like most about you."

"That I can't look you in the eye right now?" she wondered.

"No, that just…that you're so cool outside of the ring, I don't know, it's dumb," he told her. "I like being around you, you make me laugh, you get my jokes, you get my wrestling references, there's just…yeah, it's cool, you and me, it's cool."

"You like me best?" she asked him coyly, at least it was her attempt at coy. Maybe at 26 she could get this flirting thing down. It hadn't worked for the first 25 years, but here was hoping things changed, fingers crossed.

"I like you better than Maria, and Vickie, and Kaitlyn, don't tell her I said that, and E, sorry, big man, but yeah, you, just…you're the best," he told her, "and I still feel like an asshole for not getting you anything."

AJ reached across the table and grabbed his hand, "This is enough. Believe me. This is enough."

It was more than enough.

He thought of her, he thought of her and he wanted to do something special just for her. Yes, her friends threw her a party, and yes, it was nice, and it was fun, but this was something he thought of, and she was falling. She couldn't help it, and she couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it happened, but she needed to start being honest with herself. She was falling for the man her bosses had deemed the next man in a long line of men she'd have to kiss and fawn over. Something changed and broke and shattered, and the line between reality and show blurred to the point where she really did cheer him on, really did want to celebrate with him, really did want to kiss him all the time in the most disgusting ways possible.

He was more than enough.

And that made this dinner even more awkward.

She fumbled her way through it, being her normal, awkward self, but he didn't seem to notice. He put her at ease, like he always did, telling her jokes and funny stories about him and his brothers growing up. He let her try his food, and they shared a diet-breaking dessert that she ate more than he did (and like the gentleman he was, he didn't say a word about it). It was perhaps the best birthday dinner she'd ever had. No, actually, it was. It was because he'd put weeks of thought behind what he could possibly get her without realizing that the only thing she really wanted was his company.

"So…I'll see you on Friday?" he said as he walked her to her hotel room door (another gentlemanly gesture, he was surprisingly full of those for a guy who called himself bad).

"Yeah, of course, just like every week," she said. Now was the time to be bold.

She leaned up on her tiptoes, her sneakers bending from the strain and kissed his cheek. "Thanks for dinner, it was sweet, and the perfect present to cap my day."

"I'm glad, and I really am sorry that I didn't—"

"Dolph," AJ cut him off, "dinner was perfect, I had a great meal and great company, and it was perfect, okay, that was a great gift, it was, and it counts, okay?"

"Okay," he nodded, "but um, so um…" He took a deep breath. "I'm not good at this. You'd think I would be, but I swear, I'm terrible at it."

"Terrible at saying goodnight?" she giggled, biting her lip and tilting her head.

"I like you," he blurted out. "That's not how that was supposed to come out, but there it is. I like you, a lot, a lot more than my character likes you, and you're his girlfriend, so that's a lot. I like you, and I'm not even sure when I started, but I did. And when I kiss you in front of the cameras…I want to kiss you when they're off."

She laughed because she didn't know what else to do. Now she felt like she was in some birthday movie where the girl got everything she wanted. Except now she'd probably have to pay Kaitlyn twenty dollars the next time she saw her, but that didn't matter because he was standing there confessing the same thing she was feeling.

"Oh wow, and you're laughing at me, okay, this is going to make kissing you awkward from now."

"Kiss me now," she straightened her back up and nodded her head.

"What?"

"I want my gift, kiss me now," she told him, looking up at him expectantly.

He laughed a little, but she was serious and so he leaned down and he kissed her. It was nothing and everything like the kisses she'd shared with him before. She knew the feel of his lips, knew the way his head move, she even knew what it felt like to have his tongue in her mouth, sweeping against hers. But it was new still, new and wonderful and tentative, and without the frenzied false passion mixed with adrenaline from a booing crowd of thousands.

All in all, it was perfect.

"We're really good at that," Dolph told her as he pulled away.

"We're show offs," she said. "Best birthday gift ever."

"So…" AJ looked at her watch over Dolph's shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"I still have 8 minutes left to my birthday."

"Okay…" She opened her door and grabbed the lapels of his blazer, pulling him inside.

"Let's see how happy we can make it."


End file.
